Ana Karenjina - Anna Karenina - Анна Каренина
Anna Karenina
Anna Karenina is both a novel of its time and a novel for all times. Its setting is the Russia of the late 19th century through which enormous historical and social changes are sweeping. A confrontation is raging between older, traditional values which sustain the aristocracy and newer, modern values. Tolstoy uses his novel of self-discovery and adultery to question what is happening to Russia as a result of Western-style progress. Through the families, characters and events in Anna Karenina, Tolstoy takes stock of the toll this supposed progress is taking upon the country and society. Instead of progress, Tolstoy champions Russian traditions and the Russian land.
The themes of family life, marriage, and love are explored through the lives of three families: the Oblonsky, Karenin, and Levin families. The novel’s much-quoted first sentence, regarding the happiness of families, illustrates how central these themes are to Anna Karenina. Known for his realism, Tolstoy is not idealistic about family life. He details the restrictions on personal liberty, the quarrels, and betrayals that permeate family life. Regardless, Tolstoy sees family life as a source of happiness, comfort, and transcending the self. Anna’s life loses meaning when she destroys her family. On the contrary, Levin, who creates a family, ultimately has a happy life. Tolstoy leaves the reader to conclude that family life, happiness, and faith are inseparable.
The character of Anna is made unforgettable through Tolstoy’s use of the interior monologue. Interior monologues are now commonplace in novels but, in the 19th century, Tolstoy pioneered their use in portraying a characters feelings and thoughts directly rather than through summary or third-person paraphrase. In using interior monologues as a stylistic device, Tolstoy takes the reader into Anna’s thoughts, emotions, and perceptions. An intimate understanding of her motivations becomes possible. Because the reader walks with Anna’s thoughts each step of the way, her suicide becomes not a cliché but a heartbreaking decision to be rid of the self she once wanted to liberate.
Anna Karenina is a masterpiece that resonates with today’s modern life as an epic of moral regeneration, duty, sex, and marriage.